


A Lily on Thy Brow

by BeautifulSoup



Category: Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell & Related Fandoms, Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell - Susanna Clarke
Genre: M/M, POV Second Person, Plot What Plot/Porn Without Plot, Porn with Feelings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-13
Updated: 2019-12-13
Packaged: 2021-02-26 06:21:51
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,304
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21778996
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BeautifulSoup/pseuds/BeautifulSoup
Summary: You raise your hand once more to his face. His lower lip is plush, a little wet, and you press your thumb to it, rub at that image of the rose. If you are gentle enough, will you be able to pluck it? You think that if you could just grasp at the stem and pull you would see the bruises disappear from beneath his eyes, as if they are merely shadows thrown by the bloom.
Relationships: Stephen Black/John Segundus
Comments: 8
Kudos: 15





	A Lily on Thy Brow

**Author's Note:**

> Yes, this is in second person, no I do not know why, but it would not happen any other way.

The rose is bright tonight, stronger than it had been before you left him this afternoon. Perhaps it always seems brighter in the dark. Looking at him too intently makes your head spin, makes you reach out dizzily to his face although he has brushed you off before, has stepped neatly aside to avoid your dazed touch, your inquisitive fingers.

His profile is regal, his posture and bearing all that has been expected of him, but there is something about his eyes that draws you even closer when he turns to gaze upon you in surprize.

He is tired, the circles beneath his eyes deep against his dark skin. He looks as if he will tear at the lightest touch, but you fear that as he tears he will cut, edges sharp as a knife edge. You find that you do not mind the thought of your own blood on your fingertips, but you cannot bear the image of him in pieces. He seems close enough to it even now, as he looks at you with a frost that burns.

There is something in the air around him, surrounding and obscuring him a little, like a summer heat haze, and it takes you a while to realise that it is music: faint, far away, like a child’s bells in a distant garden just on the edge of hearing. Sometimes it sounds a little like laughter. You have never heard him laugh.

The strangest thing – the thing that draws you closer than you might otherwise dare – is the rose. It sits at his mouth as lightly but definitely as if it had been painted there, almost luminescent. You almost expect it to open with his lips when he speaks, for the red and white petals to part to reveal the lush pink inside of his mouth. You wonder if it will smudge when you touch your fingers to it, but it remains.

His tired eyes are wide, but despite the thinness and fragility of the skin below them, he does not rip. His lips part, and the heady scent of roses makes you giddy. You wonder if he tastes of rosewater.

His gaze travels from you, over your shoulder to something beyond and you feel the bells grow stronger although you do not hear them any louder, they only make your head spin. You turn to look, but he stops you with a hand on your cheek, with his lips upon yours.

You fancy you can feel the cool velvet of the rose petal, the sharp prick of a thorn, but it is only his lip, his teeth. You have thought of this, briefly at night, but had never entertained it properly: you know from experience now what is likely, can judge the glint in a man’s eye, and you have never seen it in his. Maybe it was there, buried far beneath the exhaustion. You gasp and taste rosewater, but then his lips are upon yours once more and he tastes like a man, nothing more than a man, but that is what you had wanted, what you had hoped for since you first set eyes upon him.

He says something, but you do not hear it. You hear the tone of his voice – careful as always, measured, helpful, but with a hardness beneath it, something pitying but unyielding – but feel the sharp grip of his fingers at your rear and find all you can say in reply is a whispered “ _yes_.”

His eyes find yours in the gloom of the hall – you had been on your way to light the lamps in the sconces when he had appeared – but flicker again somewhere over your shoulder. You wonder: if you try to look will he kiss you again?

You do not look, but raise your hand once more to his face. His lower lip is plush, a little wet, and you press your thumb to it, rub at that image of the rose. If you are gentle enough, will you be able to pluck it? You think that if you could just grasp at the stem and pull you would see the bruises disappear from beneath his eyes, as if they are merely shadows thrown by the bloom.

Before you can give it more thought, his lips open and your thumb is caught between his teeth, his lips closing around it. A tremor runs through you, hits your knees and makes you unsteady, but you do not fall. You cannot, because he has you up against the wall, pressed from chest to hip, and you know that the excitement he has kindled in you can be no secret from him.

You whisper something, you think it might be his name but it may as well be another plea for the tone of it. He looks down at you – you had noticed his height before, as you had lingered over his well-shaped form, his calves and his chest and all in between – and although a detachment remains there behind his eyes (indeed, the detachment you have grown used to), there is something brighter there, too. He is handsome and firm and lonely, you think.

 _It is alright,_ you think but do not dare say. _I am lonely too_.

And is that not the way of it, always? Two lonely men finding themselves together by chance?

The hall is dark, only the lamp at the far end lit, but you are close enough to his rooms to be ushered through, to lock the door behind you. Part of you – the larger part, the sensible part – expects him to slip away as you light the candle, to come to his senses and never speak of what has passed, but when you turn back he is still there, exquisitely tied neckcloth a beacon in the flickering light, the rose gleaming as if in moonlight.

His lips are warm and firm when you kiss him, but you do not linger there. You drop to your knees as if something pulls you down, feel the rough grain of the wood through your stockings, and raise your trembling hands to work on the falls of his breeches. He groans as if you have already taken him into your mouth.

When you look up at him you are undone. His head is thrown back, his long throat exposed as he tugs at his collar, loosening the intricate knots of his cravat. They seem to come undone more easily than one would expect, as if by magic or by some second invisible pair of hands. His buckskin breeches do nothing to hide what nature has given him, and you press your palm against the fabric to feel the shape of him, the heat that almost scorches. It is a scramble to free him, and it is glorious.

You bow your head and place a kiss to his crown.

“Yes,” he says above you. “Yes.”

You trace the shape of him with your lips, almost closed, delicate skin the best to take the measure of delicate skin. Your mouth waters with the scent of him as you reach the base of his iron and run your tongue back to the tip, following the thrum of his pulse along that thick vein. The candle does not give quite enough light to see by, but you prefer to feel your way, to learn a man by touch and taste rather than sight.

Although, what a sight he is.

When you take him in your mouth his fingers tighten in your hair, push you down until you are so full of him you feel you might choke, but the taste and the stretch of him is so satisfying that you follow his direction eagerly. You want to please him, to do well. You have felt that need since he arrived, since you guided him around your home eager for his carefully guarded praise.

The sound of bells comes again, faint behind the roar of blood in your ears, and sounds this time like laughter. Fingers in your hair pull you back, tilt your head up to look at him. Your cock throbs, a spot of dampness against your underclothes, the sudden awareness of your own arousal coursing through your blood like molten gold. The pricks of pain at your scalp and your knees only make your blood pump harder.

His lips are full from kisses – although, you think dimly, you did not think you had kissed so much – and his eyes are heavy with something that you cannot decipher. His hand comes to your cheek, cups it for a moment before his fingers are in your mouth and it is instinct as well as eagerness which makes you purse your lips and suck at them. His cock is heavy in your hand, and you stroke it, bring it to press against your cheek, and it is between your lips once more, his fingers still alongside as your saliva drips down your chin and soaks your shirt.

The moan starts so deep within you that it seems to rattle your entire being. The hands in your hair tighten, pull you back again although you try to crane forward, to taste him again, the entirety of him, but you are urged up onto the bed before you can object. You do not think you _could_ object to anything he asks of you – not with those bleak, lonely eyes, not with such exhaustion etched on his handsome features.

All he need do is flick those eyes across your body and you are undressing with shaking hands, buttons slipping between your fingers as waistcoat and shirt and breeches and stockings are discarded with nothing like your usual care. He looks at you, eyes lingering on your leaking, aching cock, and nods as he climbs onto the bed. He is as calm as if he is walking down a London street, his gaze flicking over your body as if over shop displays for items he does not need but finds curious.

He places a hot hand on your hip, and you turn yourself over. A trembling has taken over your limbs, but you cannot tell if it is from anticipation or apprehension. Nevertheless, you keep yourself aloft on aching knees and shaking elbows, and when he holds a hand out before you, you spit into it, watching the white froth of your spit fizz against his dark palm. The hand withdraws, and you hear him spit once, twice. You feel the cool drip of it against your fundament and the shock of it makes you twitch, makes you push back against him.

There is no preface, only a thumb smearing you slick and making you want it, but you do not mind. He pushes in, blunt but slick from your mouth and his wet palm, forcing a cry from you, the trembling in your limbs taking you over as he continues, slow and unyielding and shooting sparks up your spine all the while. You have been taken like this before: rushed and rough with just spit to ease the way, and enjoyed it more than not, but this feels like more than that: as if some other substance is between you, something that makes the girth of him easier to take.

Your lungs burn and your arms tremble, but when he gives a last push and you feel his stones against yours, tight to your outside as he is inside, you gasp to refill your empty, aching lungs and somehow remember to keep breathing. His hands are on your hips, rubbing circles into your flesh and they spark as if starting a fire. The bells are inside your head, you think, loud as they sound when he kisses your back, your shoulders; you feel him say something, his warm, damp breath over your goose-pricked skin, but you cannot hear him over the ringing in your ears.

The cry is pushed from you when he thrusts forward, and you cannot stop the sounds escaping from you: grunts and cries and words you keep from yourself in the daylight. He shifts his weight, brings his knees to the backs of your calves to pin you down, and you feel heavy under him, would gladly sink under his weight if it kept that bright spot inside of you sparking with every thrust as if you were both made of flint.

You say something more, but your mind is disconnected and it may just be “ _More_ ” that you say as his fingers dig deep in your hips, and oh, he gives it. He tugs on your hair, pulling your head back, and slips his fingers into your mouth . He fills you, hot and fast and wringing from you all you had wished for, and you shut your eyes and suck on his fingers as you wish they were his prick, but you cannot have him everywhere and you think you might weep if he were to leave you as you are. You might weep as you are, burning hot with the sensation of it, almost too much.

He says something more, but the bells are still loud in your ears and all you can make of it is the tone, the paper-thin restraint of his voice, rough and low as you have never heard it, as you would hear it forever more, but you gather the meaning of it as his hips move quicker, sharper, and it feels as though he would climb inside you entirely and in that moment you would, you would take him into you without question, take him to your breast and keep him there, away from the shade of that rose. You cannot say this although you want him to hear it: his fingers press against your tongue, and all you can do is lave at them, suck them as you sucked him earlier, feel the spit run from your open, gasping mouth.

When he takes them away you moan, chase after them, until the wet heat of them wrap around your prick and it’s too much, too much by far, and you’re calling out as you spend hard and thick over the sheets, as you collapse to your elbows from the force of it. He’s still going, the drag and push of him so raw inside you that you wonder if you might come again just from the reverberations of it before you’re even hard again, but then he shoves deep and hard once, twice, and comes, and finally your legs give out.

He falls on top of you, pressing you deep into the mattress with a firm, hot weight that you would like to learn the intricacies of, to feel the change of him with the seasons although you know even now, as your mind is still light and hazy from pleasure, that this will be all you know of him: the unminded weight of him, the lazy drag of lips and tongue against your neck and shoulder as his hands roam your sides, soothing the tender spots of your hips. Still, you would feel his skin rather than his shirt.

He speaks, and you hear him now as the ringing fades, as he brushes the hair from your face with something like tenderness. “I am sorry, sir,” he says, and there is something fractured in his tone. You try to look at him, but the arrangement of your bodies makes this difficult. The way he holds your chin – gently but firmly – tells you this is by design. “I do not usually…”

The sigh he utters is devastating, as if he is exhaling his very soul, and as you cannot face him as you would like, you grasp for his hand, clutch tight to his fingers, still damp from your mouth.

“You will escape this,” you say, and bring his fingers to your lips to kiss them hard, to make him sure that you know. You are still not sure what exactly it is that you know, but there is something amiss. He will not tell you. He will trust you with his body but not with his words, but that is so often the way of it. He presses his face to your back, and it feels hot, damp, but you say nothing, only hum so he can feel it, clutching his fingers tight.

When he raises himself you cannot but whimper at the loss of him, the shock of the cold air against your raw, bare skin.

You expect to hear the footsteps moving away from you, but do not hear the door as you thought. He returns a moment later, pressing with a cold cloth between your legs, cleaning you, wiping away the evidence of himself. He urges you over with a light touch at your hip and you follow his silent command. He watches your body as he cleans your own mess from your chest and belly, regards you in the candlelight.

“I must sleep,” he says, although he sounds reluctant, and you know what he is asking.

“Of course,” you say, and it stings even though it is not unexpected. You stand on shaking legs and gather your scattered clothes. You pull on your shirt and breeches, clutch the others to your chest. He is still dressed, though his shirt is untucked and his breeches are wrinkled.

“I… do not sleep soundly,” he says as you reach for the door, and it seems to take great effort. “It would be different otherwise.”

“Of course,” you say again, and bow as you leave the room.

When you sleep – though it comes upon you slowly tonight – you dream you are trespassing, looking through the windows of a great but dilapidated house, a window rimed with dust, watching him dance.

*

In the morning he leaves, comes in as you serve Lady Pole her breakfast. When he meets your eye you are powerless to stop the heat creeping from your chest to your cheeks, but he is as unaffected by the sight of you as he had been the previous day. You wish to stand, to tell him of the bruises left on your hips that should grant you more than the distant politeness he now shows, but you do not. How could you?

He kneels before the Lady, exchanges words with her, and in that look is all the sorrow and tenderness you had thought might be yours to see. Of course, how could it have been?

The roses at their mouths seem to shimmer as they speak. They speak not as people do usually, but as if they are discussing some scandal at a funeral: speaking around it until their words are riddles you cannot unpick.

“I hope we can give her ladyship some peace here,” you say as you walk him to the door. “I hope you can find your own.” The suspicion is back in his eyes, but lasts only a moment when he sees your solemnity.

“Thank you, Mr Segundus,” he says, and turns to leave. “I believe Lady Pole will be comfortable here, as much as she can be anywhere.”

The remark cuts, but you have steeled yourself against such comments. It is not a criticism of the quality of your care, you know, only an effect of the lady’s condition, but still it feels like a punch to the chest, leaving you empty of air.

You want to tell him to come back when he can, that he is welcome to stay, but you do not. You know he will not, and you cannot open yourself to the inevitable disappointment that would stem from voicing such a desire.

You say instead, “Goodbye, Mr Black,” and accept his stiff nod as he walks to his horse.

Inside, the scent of roses lingers.


End file.
